Amanda Highben recently completed her internship at University Lutheran Church in East Lansing, Michigan, with Pastor Fred Fritz as her supervisor. She graciously shared these observations.

When my husband Zeb and I still lived in Minnesota, I was often able to stay up late enough to catch the Top Ten List on the Late Show with David Letterman because it started at 10:30. But once we moved to Michigan I usually missed the Top Ten, as the Late Show doesn’t start until 11:30 …

Nicolas Christoffels was born on May 5 to interns Stephanie and Anthony Christoffels. Nicolas was 7 pounds, 5 ounces at birth, 19 ½ inches long. Stephanie is interning at Christ Lutheran in Hartford, S.D, and Anthony at the Colton (S.D.) parish.

Annalies Messner was born to Sally and Josh Messner on May 10, weighing 8 pounds, 15 ounces and measuring 19 inches. Sally is Teaching Congregations Coordinator in the Contextual …

If you contact the Contextual Learning office during the early summer months, you may hear a different voice answering the phone or see a different name showing up in your email inbox than you are expecting. Jo Quanbeck is filling in during Sally Messner’s maternity leave.

Jo is not new to Luther Seminary—she earned a M.Div. degree here in 2005 and worked for the Center for Biblical Preaching in 2006-2007, assisting with the early development of workingpreacher.org. She claims the Twin …

I began service in my first call on July 1, 1967. I was an assistant pastor. The senior pastor took ten days to break me in and then left for a two-week European vacation.

It was a large, downtown church in a major Eastern city. It was the summer of 1967, a summer that was riddled with urban rioting. Our city was no exception. When the senior pastor had been gone for two days, rioting broke out and reached into the neighborhood around the church. Our block was put under a dusk to dawn curfew. Armed …